


Sleep On The Floor

by Be_the_Spark



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humans, Leotilda, One Shot Collection, originally from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Be_the_Spark/pseuds/Be_the_Spark
Summary: Leo and Mattie run off together once the police find out she uploaded consciousness to all the other Synths. Over a course of time, they adjust to their relationship while Leo grapples with his traumatic memories, and Mattie her own guilt. One chapter for each season, so it’s a four shot.





	1. SUMMER

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song Sleep By The Floor by The Lumineers
> 
> Pack yourself a toothbrush dear  
> Pack yourself a favorite blouse  
> Take a withdrawal slip  
> Take all of your savings out  
> ‘Cause if we don’t leave this town  
> We might never make it out  
> I was not born to drown  
> Baby come on

 

 

“C’mon, what’ll move you?” muttered Leo, turning a wrench counter-clockwise into an engine rivet. The car did not respond, unless you counted a coil popping loose. Leo bit back a curse and shot a glance at the house ahead of him. Despite showing promise in fixing the washer, the television set, and the lights, when it came to automobiles he was useless as a mechanic. So he let the wrench clatter on the stone pavement as he slammed the front of Ed Hooley’s spare Volkswagen back into place.

At least he’d enjoy the walk back to the house. For the English coast, the sky in June seemed almost identical to the one in November, or in January. The strength with which the winds beat the sand and sea away varied from season to season, true, but the towering grey sky rested above the ocean to remind of the things that never changed.

However, there were a few things that did. It was always nice when some heartless prick grew a conscience. An apology in itself went a long way in healing the scars of broken trust. And, luckily for Leo, the turnabout could be followed with acts of repentance. Only in this case, it wasn’t his own past trauma from which he was profiting.

Couple that with the fact that whatever Ed had done to Mia in the first place was so painful she couldn’t even speak of it now, and Leo was ready for a change in address at its soonest opportunity.

Well, that and he couldn’t seem to keep up his end of the bargain. Maybe Ed would have him fix toilets next. When he came into the house, Ed was at the counter, leaning against a barstool with a beer in hand. “We need to talk,” he told Leo, a shadow of bad news haunting his eyes.

Leo glanced at the beer. “Can I get one of those, at least?”

Ignoring him, Ed sighed. “Mate, look – I don’t have any regrets about taking you in. I know it started with me trying to make things up to…whatever Mia is to you, I still don’t exactly understand it.”

“You want me gone?”

“Didn’t say that.” But after another sip of his beer, Ed said curtly, “Leo, how’s the Volkswagen?“

With a sensation of engine coils growing in his gut, Leo admitted, “Couldn’t quite finish on it.”

“Huh.” Ed Hooley stood straight and shook his head. “You still didn’t touch the screwdriver though?” And although Leo winced at the idea, the bartender continued, “Damn shame, I can’t send someone along in it if it’s still dead out there.”

Leo frowned. “So you wanted to give me the car?”

Ed raised his eyebrows and pointed past Leo, just as a female voice said, “Not him.”

Leo would have smiled at the sight of Mattie, whom he hadn’t seen for two weeks now, if the evident stress on her face hadn’t left her looking part-ghost. “What’s happened?” he asked her.

Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “They know,” she said simply.

As Leo’s brain put the implication together, Ed cleared his throat and announced, “I’ll let you two work this out.” He grabbed his car keys and went out the door. Darkness was now beginning to cast over the beach, ready to tinge the heavens with heavy indigo shade.

Leo stepped closer to Mattie. “How?” he asked quietly.

She seemed just as lost at the question as him. “I don’t know…I just remember getting a message from my mum saying not to come home. To go to Waltringham and get money from Dad. And then take a bus, start running.”

 _Well played,_  thought Leo gravely. He’d been on the run himself before. Difference was, Mattie couldn’t take her entire family with her while the government was searching for the source of the Synthetic consciousness code. And Leo, for all his anxiety, never had to worry about going to prison.

“I’ll talk to Ed,” he said all of a sudden. “You can stay here with us…” Leo looked at her now, the hesitation marked on her face. Could she really stay, though? When Leo himself was doubting how much longer he could last here only up until fifteen minutes ago? “I’ll go with you,” he decided. Mattie’s eyes widened with an emotion he could not pinpoint. Still, he had to assume she was not unhappy about his declaration.

“Not in that mess you left behind, you’re not,” said Ed from the entrance. They both turned to see him cleaning his hands with a towel. Then he said, “It goes without saying, you’ve got a way about the machines, Leo. Anything broken I’ve given you up until now, you’ve been able to put right. So, get you and your girl settled in your room for the evening. We’re going to fix the Volkswagen at first light.”

Mattie had slept over Ed’s with Leo before. The problem was, there was no bed in his spare room. There was a small sofa, with enough space for either one small person or a very large baby.

Leo and Mattie both hated that sofa anyhow. Laying on top of blankets that smelled like what must have once been Ed’s dog, they stared at the pitch-dark ceiling side by side.

“What’s going to happen,” Mattie breathed, “if you can’t get that car to run?”

“Then we’ll stay here together.” Because in all honesty, Leo wasn’t about to let her do this without him. He’d already been disconnected from everyone else he’d ever loved. “Or we’ll walk a mile or two, catch a bus in between.”

“But it would be easier if we had the car.”

“Yeah.” They could sleep in the car too, although he wasn’t certain how Mattie would feel about him once they’d spent more than one night confined together in that vehicle. But he took her hand into his and said, “I’ll get it to run.”

The next morning, with the sun still shy from making an appearance, Ed and Leo faced each other by the Volkswagen’s hood. Ed was silent, apart from the flat-head screwdriver he held out to Leo. For Leo, on the other hand, it was as if the entire world had revealed itself to be on a fraying tether cord. In any given moment, he could break with it.

“No,” he said at last.

Ed groaned. “I know I haven’t asked, but seeing as how it is a tad bit important for Mattie to have this car, and I need to help you help her get out of dodge before the police show up at my door, I’m going to now. Why can you touch any tool in my shed except a bloody screwdriver?”

“I took one to the head,” replied Leo, blunt as a hammer could be.

Taken aback, Ed considered his next response. “Was it an accident?”

“Does it sound like it could be an accident?” he retorted. Then the incredulity in his mood was interrupted at the sight of Mattie sitting on the porch. Her unkempt brown waves, blowing along with the early morning wind, were visible even from this proximity to the beach.

Ed sighed. “Was it even this kind of screwdriver, mate?”

Leo studied it. The one that Hester stabbed him with had had a finer tip. Not a flathead.

“No.”

“Well, at least there’s that.” Ed seemed like he was trying his best to maintain that “mate” approach, but Leo could practically taste the over-compensation.

“Why are you doing this, Ed?” he asked.

Healy glanced down, shuffled uncomfortably. “I already have a Nissan. And I know how to fix this one already, but I’d rather you earn it.”

“Really. And what have I done to earn your help in the first place? Or is it, what was it that you did to Mia?”

The other man swallowed and set the screwdriver on the engine. “We’re done here. Figure out the Volkswagen, be on your way. I’m going back to sleep.”

Watching his retreating back, Leo couldn’t remember the last time hopelessness felt like relief. He eyed the sitting screwdriver one last time, with fear and contempt. Hester had driven one into him as easily as a straight nail.

He joined Mattie at the porch. While she was hugging her knees for warmth, she said, “You’ll figure it out.”

Leo hesitated. “I’m not. He’s trying to help and everything, but I can’t -.” She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. There was too much else for her to worry about. “Get your things,” he muttered. He nudged her, and though his decision would likely remain inexplicable to her for awhile to come, Leo was determined to not regret it.

When Mattie was ready, she noticed the scrap note he’d left on Ed’s table.

_TELL MIA YOU’RE EVEN._

An unspoken question crossed her face. Leo returned it with an unspoken answer, by holding up the keys to Ed’s Nissan.

If Mattie held any argument toward it, she kept it to herself. She followed Leo out to their getaway car, and they began their drive in silence.


	2. FALL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forget what Father Brennan said
> 
> We were not born in sin
> 
> Leave a note on your bed
> 
> Let your mother know you’re safe
> 
> And by the time she wakes
> 
> We’ll have driven through the state
> 
> We’ll have driven through the night
> 
> Baby come on

 

“Uhnn…no. N-no!”

A pained Mattie watched as Leo tossed about in his sleep, looking like he was drowning in the backseat. Eventually he quieted, his breaths falling steady again. Mattie’s own breathing eased once more as well. She hated it, but Leo was out of her reach for the moment. It was always a mystery to her, how he could drift off in the car so easily. Mattie supposed it was from years of practice. And while confinement in the passenger’s seat prevented her from falling asleep herself, telling Leo about his nightmares so that he’d stay up with her went beyond selfish. It was dangerous, as he needed the rest upon his insistence to drive.

Even if that rest gave way to intense, disturbing dreams.

Mattie sighed. Honestly, she’d be having nightmares if she’d died inside a waterlogged car too. Leo stirred for a second time, a wince appearing under his closed eyes. It occurred to her that this could be a long-delayed lapse in his recovery from the coma, and wondered if maybe she should wake him after all. Then she heard him speak, the words as clear as they were vague. “No, I don’t…” he groaned.

Those same words, nearly every night. Not that she’d likely ever learn what it meant. He didn’t tell her everything on his mind, and she didn’t tell him everything on hers. Like the cold October air, tension left no space unfilled for the two young people living in a stolen Nissan. For over three months now, Leo and Mattie had infringed on one another’s boundaries. He got irritated whenever she adjusted the car’s temperature settings, and he wouldn’t pull over in town so that she could buy cigarettes.

And she was still holding some resentment about Leo’s disastrous attempt to use bluetooth and activate Ed Hooley’s wireless music cloud. Being on a permanent loop through eleven cities had forever ruined “Eleanor Rigby” for Mattie.  

Things certainly weren’t improved after they passed York, when the Nissan had sputtered a swift, mysterious death. This was their third day stuck on the side of the road. It was also the day all of their provisions had finally run out.

Mattie couldn’t accept defeat, however, and slipped outside for a bit to clear her head. So much isolation out here, like the rest of the world had done itself in. If she and Leo Elster were the last woman and man on Earth, she’d write the human race’s obituary.

The chill was getting to her when something startled her: a petite figure, moving towards her from a short distance, stiffly but with strong pacing. Hope sprang within her like an alarm, and she thought,  _This is it!_

“Hey!” she called to it. “Can you help us out? This car’s broken down…” Her words trailed into oblivion when she saw the bright emerald eyes staring back at her. The Synth stopped in her tracks, likely anticipating a typical paranoid human to call 999. “What are you doing here?”

The Synthetic answered, edge in tone, “I am seeking a place where I might charge. What are you doing here, human?”

How had she managed to get so far without charging or getting the 999 dropped on her? But she didn’t ask. This Synth spoke to her with near hostility. The last time she’d felt this threatened, the Synth Hester was twisting her arm. Mattie swallowed.

“I asked you, what are you doing here?” The Synth stepped forward, allowing enough moonlight to illuminate her beyond the eyes. Mattie realized she had seen her before.

“You were at the railyard,” she whispered. “I was talking with Max, and you were there.”

“Yes.” The Synth was closing in, and Mattie took an instinctive step backwards. “I remember. I asked Max why you were there. What was in that locked room. That was the day you disappeared.” The Synth’s arm snatched out, grabbing Mattie by the arm. Unpleasant memories rang with this, but just as with Hester, a familiar voice intervened.

“Let her go,” said Leo, coming out from behind Mattie. She turned to see his face, drawn and pale even in this darkness. “Look, I get that you must hate humans for what they’ve done to…your kind.” That catch in his voice – he evidently was still struggling to identify as plainly human, after so many years of feeling more like a Synth. He shook his head then, as if to clear its synthetic cobwebs. “Believe me, we are some of the last people you want to harm. We’re on your side.”

The Synth tilted her head. Her grip did not loosen on Mattie, but her attention was now wholly on Leo. “And who are you?”

“I’m Leo,” he said, unreservedly. “I’m what was behind that locked door.”

As Mattie stared at him, his open confession leaving her perplexed, the Synth finally released her arm. “I am Agnes,” she said, formal yet still harboring a brittle taste in her words. “Max expelled me from the railyard for acting out against his decisions. I want to know why he was hiding you.”

Leo shrugged, perhaps hoping to inspire trust in Agnes. Mattie couldn’t tell. She was too busy wondering if he’d woken up with his mind lost. “I was recovering from an injury that left me in a coma. Max had brought me to the railyard in secret, and Mattie,” he glanced her way, “visited me in that locked room for a year.”

Mattie wasn’t the best at reading Synthetic body language, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if Agnes was skeptical.

“Why would Max want to save you?” she asked him.

_Don’t do it, Leo. Please don’t say it._

“I suspect he was interested in my welfare because I’m the son of David Elster.” Quickly, he added, “You would know if I’m lying. Am I?”

She shook her head.  _God, Leo, why not share who released the consciousness code to all the Synths while you’re at it? Tell her we’re on the run. Oh, I’ll bet she’d enjoy you talking about our sex life too, you dumb bloke!_

“Despite its overall unlikelihood, I recognize this as true.” And yet, seeming unimpressed upon meeting David Elster’s heir, Agnes’s voice nevertheless remained wary. “Why were you kept secret?”

Before Leo could answer with more information overload, Mattie muttered, “Probably because Max thought there might be some human-hating Synths that would want to hurt us. So glad we were wrong.”

Agnes’s eyebrows scrunched ever so slightly in response. “I detect insincerity in your statement.”

“It’s called sarcasm. It’s a weapon against utter ignorance.”

“Mattie, come on,” scolded Leo. He turned back to Agnes. “How did you get this far?”

“I stole a rechargeable battery pack. I risk being caught for curfew by traveling at night, but the roads I use have not had a single human on them. Until now.”

“Maybe…” Leo exhaled in preparation.

 _Uh oh,_ thought Mattie.

“Maybe we can help each other.”

The Synth stepped back. “How would we do that?”

“If you can fix our car, we’ll drive you to wherever you mean to go.”

It was unclear whether Mattie or Agnes was more surprised by this idea. But Synthetics were excellent at mechanical repairs – Mattie had seen as much at the railyard.  And by her soundless march towards the Nissan, Agnes was clearly no exception.

Mattie sat down on the road’s edge while Leo had a preliminary discussion with Agnes of what might or might not have been wrong with the car. Then he joined her as she stared out into a field. “She’ll have it done within half an hour.”

“I guess all that truth-telling worked out then,” she said dryly.

Leo frowned. “I didn’t tell her so that she’d help. I told her because I didn’t care to see your arm broken.”

“Nice to know you care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Mattie sighed. And because she was sleep-deprived, when tiredness makes one say stupid things, she blurted out, “You love me, don’t you?”

“What?” he said sharply, blanching like she’d slapped him.

Ignoring his reaction, Mattie shook her head. “You’ve never said it. You’ve been an ass this entire drive. I just wanna know.”

To her startled eyes, he leapt to his feet. “No, I don’t,” he said, the harsh undertone bewildering her more than the words themselves. He walked away as one tired tear rolled down her cheek.

Moments later the white-gold sun began to rise out of the heavens’ blue canopy. There had been no indication of the hour until now, with their electronic devices depleting their batteries two days ago.

Leo said he didn’t love her. It didn’t make sense on a rational level. After all, he’d been so eager to help her escape that he’d stolen a car rather than learn to fix one. If he’d done the latter option, they wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. That was love, wasn’t it? What else could it be?

The shadows in the sky were lightening into clouds when Leo returned. “Agnes is done,” he said, taking the spot on the ground beside her once more.

She didn’t trust herself to respond. Leo drew another deep breath.

“There’s something truly wrong with me, Mattie. I had an automatic reaction to a question I was asked before. By Hester.”

Now he had Mattie’s full attention. Under the cloak of a shaded sunrise, she searched his pale blue eyes for an emotion. She found several: pain, regret, uncertainty. He knew what he’d been dreaming about this whole time, and he was tentative to share it. But now he was ready.

“She asked me if I loved her. I was trying to gain her trust back so that she wouldn’t hurt anyone else, but she knew I was lying. That’s when I felt that sharp pain. It became hard to breathe. Everything faded to white, then black.”

He shifted closer, and she put her hand in his. Leo continued, “But even though I couldn’t comprehend anything, I did feel your presence afterwards. I knew you were with me, Mattie. And when I woke up, I remembered that feeling. Just because I can’t say what you mean to me yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

Lightheaded from this confession, Mattie leaned against him. “Well, I can. I love you, Leo Elster.”

A tiny laugh escaped him. “Thank you,” he said, his mouth muffled as he kissed her on the head.

“Human affection is expressed in oversentimentality. It wastes time,” said Agnes from behind them, sounding cross.

This time Leo and Mattie laughed together. “Oh, Niska would adore you,” he told the small-statured Synth. And somehow, in that moment, Agnes began to grow on Mattie – if only because teasing her was going to make for a fun ride


	3. WINTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And when we looked outside
> 
> Couldn’t even see the sky
> 
> How do you pay the rent
> 
> Is it your parents
> 
> Or is it hard work dear
> 
> Holding the atmosphere
> 
> I don’t wanna live like that, yeah

Outside of what had to be the cheapest hotel in England, snow coated the parking area in soft white clumps. It reminded Leo of powdered sugar, or maybe frosting when it was packed. Or maybe it was really like neither of those things, and Leo just wanted a piece of cake. But they didn’t have cake with them. They didn’t have anything.

He sat in the back of the Nissan with his head in his hands. The last of their funds had gone towards a week in this pit – neither he or Mattie had wanted to spend the holiday bickering in the car. But now, because of this miscalculated decision, they couldn’t agree on their final destination. Leo wanted to turn back around and seek refuge at Max’s railyard. With Agnes no longer a threat, it had to be a safer place than before. Unfortunately, he understood Mattie’s reluctance. What kind of person would he be, forcing her to live among the lives she’d brought into this world amid such violent prejudice? Not to mention what could happen if the other Synths found out she was behind Day Zero. He didn’t give much of a damn over whether they knew who he was – he was weary of being a dead man with no identity. But Mattie had only uploaded the code to save Mia from dying. She didn’t deserve this life, a future without cake or a home or Christmas with her family.

Rubbing his eyes, he pulled a grimace at the thought of the words they’d shared before he’d retreated to the car to think. The interior filled with his icy breath, promising it would snow in there if it could. It was still probably colder in the room, though.

He reached for the book at his side and flipped back the cover. Flicking through the pages without really reading them, Leo still felt just as dumbstruck as he had when Mattie put it in his hands.

“ _Be Still, Dear Heart_. What is this, a romance novel?” he’d raised an eyebrow at her.

She folded her arms. “Yeah, I pinched it from the lobby’s bookshelf. Happy Christmas.”

A wry smirk pulled at his mouth. “I might finally have to let you drive now, if I want to get anywhere with this.”

“The thought did occur to me.”

Then the moment had shifted into awkwardness. For one thing, he didn’t have anything for her in return. His own experiences with this season were unorthodox, to say the least. His mother, in her better days, had done the decorating and cooking, despite being disastrous at both. After she’d died, the only thing that remained was the gift exchange, and he’d never been any good at that. His brothers and sisters were all able to craft things – Mia would give him art for his room and Niska would give him interesting texts. Only Max’s gifts had made him feel slightly better about his own failure at gift giving, and that was because Max tended to find the oddest things interesting enough to pass on as presents. Luckily, rubbish like the musical woodpecker pendulum his brother had found for him would never see the light of day.

The notion was humorous, but Leo sobered at the sight of Mattie looking downcast. “I am sorry you can’t be with your family,” he told her.

She shrugged, like he’d just apologized for borrowing her laptop without permission. “Loads of people can’t be with their families this year.”

He knew her well enough by now to recognize when she left something between the lines, and it tore him with both sympathy and exasperation. This was a conversation they’d been hashing out ever since he’d woken up from his coma.

“That’s not on you,” he said, entirely out of any other words. “Mattie, I can’t convince you that you didn’t kill anyone. But you didn’t. Triggering a string of accidents is not the same as firing a weapon at someone. Your choice was to save a life, not take it. Mia’s alive because of you. I just wish you could see that.”

She should have seen that. But Mattie only shook her head. “What now? Are you gonna say enough with the self-pity again? Or justify all the damage I’ve done because it wasn’t done to you?”

The words cut the tiniest of wounds in his heart. It began filling with a grievance of its own. “Look, I don’t really care if you think I’m selfish. I am, in fact, very selfish. And you’re being a martyr.” Mattie’s eyes widened as she froze in place, but Leo couldn’t stop. “You say I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through, but I was the one who tried to lead a mass exodus of Synths out of Qualia and wound up surrounded by their bodies. So you’ll have to forgive me for saying you should think better of yourself while completely understanding how you feel.”

She blinked at him, and he realized it was not surprise in her eyes but tears. Before he could save the conversation, Mattie turned around and went to the sink. The last Leo had seen of her before going back to the Nissan, she was brushing her teeth.

He’d been honest. In fact, more honest than he could ever remember being since this all started in the summer. But Mattie didn’t need honesty at the moment. She needed a distraction.

And, scavenging in Ed’s car, Leo hoped he’d found the answer.

When he came back into the room, he paused and leaned by the door frame. Mattie had turned on the radio, and was now snapping her fingers to what Leo, thanks to his botched attempt at handling Ed’s stereo, recognized as a Beatles Christmas song.

Mattie paid him no heed, choosing to hum and bob her head to the melody rather than acknowledge who was bringing all the cold air inside. Leo shut the door, and with his prize in hand, switched the radio clock to its disc mode.

“What are you doing?” she asked him at last, wariness inflected.

“I don’t know too much about contemporary music,” he replied with nonchalance. “But Ed had this one record that I actually rather liked. And it was in the pocket of one of the Nissan’s seats.”

Leo inserted the CD with a rare flight of giddiness soaring in him. Hitting the play button, he looked at Mattie expectantly as the room filled with slow piano chords. In all of the five seconds it took to listen, she said softly, “The Scientist. Coldplay.”

“Is…it okay?” he asked, suddenly unsure by her reaction.

She nodded, and he came closer. Closer until she was in his arms. They swayed subtly for a bit, until the movement turned into a dance.

_Tell me your secrets_

_And ask me your questions_

_Oh let’s go back to the start_

_Running in circles, coming up tails_

_Heads on a science apart_

_Nobody said it was easy_

_It’s such a shame for us to part_

_No one ever said it would be this hard_

_Oh take me back to the start_

“You know I’ve never danced with anyone,” he murmured, hesitant to break this moment between them.

The corners of her lip turned up. “I haven’t either.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I always acted too cool for it.”

“Why would you want to pretend?”

Mattie nestled her chin into the space between his neck and shoulder. “It was easier to act apart from everyone, to let them think I didn’t care.”

Hearing this with new insight, Leo moved his face so that he could look into her eyes. “Well,” he breathed, “I’d say you’ve come a long way from that Mattie.” And then he kissed her, soft and gentle to start. But the warmth rising in her cheeks blurred his vision, and with her arms wrapped around his neck, Leo felt a fierce, untamed wanting. They hadn’t been together since their first time in her bedroom. There had never been a good time afterwards for extensive touching. But she smelled like soap and flowers, and her skin was unique and imperfect in a beauty that a Synth could never possess. As she unfastened his jeans, her kisses brushed the side of his neck, and something came to life within him. Something he’d never even considered was true, but now he believed – his soul. Mattie Hawkins had taken his anger, his fear and distrust, and cracked it all open to find a purer incarnation of himself.

Once they were fully unclothed, he pushed her gently onto the bed, his lips busy exploring new areas on her torso.  _Is this what it’s like to belong to someone?_ he thought. When Mattie wrapped her legs around his, however, his brain stopped wondering and he moved into an entirely different plane of being – with her. Always with her.


	4. SPRING

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> Pack yourself a toothbrush dear  
> Pack yourself a favorite blouse  
> Take a withdrawal slip  
> Take all of your savings out  
> 'Cause if we don't leave this town  
> We might never make it out
> 
>  

 

 

 

The lake was cold. Not worthy of a polar bear swim, mind. Its temperature was a kiss on the skin – soft, like the back of a chilled hand brushing a person’s neck. It was a May-warmed kind of water, and it was flooding quickly past Mattie’s shoulders. Her brain was going wild at the moment; already she was unable to breathe, swallowing fear instead of water or oxygen. It was too late to try the door again – she’d never stood a chance with it being sealed shut by the water’s density of all things. Why had Leo never mentioned that? He’d told her not to panic, but as seeing how within his set of traumatic baggage there was, in fact, a drowning car, Mattie wasn’t sure now that he’d meant it. The water rising dangerously close to her ribcage was murky, likely polluted. Not that the sanitation of the water mattered when it was going to kill you anyways. It continued its merciless rise to the top. And although Mattie was frightened, she knew that the real danger was when it did stop. By then, it would be too late.

Her heart hitting into her chest, Mattie banged on the door, yelling. Where the hell was Leo? Then her tears became one with the lake, as the latter took over the still-sinking car.

**24 Hours Earlier**

 

“Joan!” A voice from the lobby snapped through the room like an air rifle. “You have three customers at the desk. Are you looking to get sacked right here?”

Mattie sighed from the break room, the taste of her cheap pastrami sandwich ruined. By Andrea, her co-worker, whose blonde Barbie-esque beauty had obviously led to the charm of a bitter fruit from working here.

Despite Andrea’s readiness to rake her across the coals and the fact that her car was twice as big as the room she was using, Mattie was in no hurry to finish her lunch. Her coworker had been grating her nerves since they’d started working together three weeks ago, and her favorite method was a scare tactic to get her to fear her own breaks.

It was true, the hotel was not the most enthralling place to work. Repairing electronics put Leo in his element, but Mattie wished that they’d both been granted jobs at the local tech shop. She could scarcely complain aloud, though – it had taken them short of a year to be forgotten. For Mattie’s face to quit splashing on the telly screens, for them to hack themselves new identities for jobs, and finally land on stable ground.

When Mattie returned to the desk, four more customers had accumulated alongside the initial three. She worked her way down the line, booking Mr. and Mrs. Walter-Pony a room, requesting a set of towels for a goth kid her brain refused to call anything other than Barnabas, and searching for the daily paper so that Mr. Kensington could read something on the toilet.

Unfortunately, the last remaining newspaper was currently in the hands of an attractive, tall woman with a messy brown bun. She had it open, fixating on a single page. Mattie hated to be that person who brought up prices, but there was no point in purchasing a paper you’d already finished reading. “Sorry,” she said to the woman, hesitant. “But if you’re not going to buy that, there’s a gentleman at the desk who wants it.”

The woman raised her fingers to her lips, then pointed to the paper. A small article at the bottom read _Search For Day Zero Suspect Matilda Hawkins Still Ongoing._

With a tingling dread rising in Mattie’s stomach like carbonated water, she read that the police were still looking for her, only in smaller numbers now. They were determined to bring her to justice without wasting another year’s pile of resources. They also had suspicions she had not left England.

Alarm bells ringing in her head, she looked up at the woman, who promptly tore the paper in half.

“Excuse me! Ma’am – _Ma’am!_ ” gasped Andrea while the customer made an exit.

Rushed, Mattie said, “I’ll handle it. You handle that!” Gesturing to the remaining line, Mattie raced out the door. The grace of morning sunlight hit her in between the eyes, and she wandered in the parking area aimlessly at first until a hand tugged at the crook of her elbow and pulled her aside.

“Who are you?” she asked the woman, who cast a glance around the empty lot shrewdly, like a paranoid cat.

“I’m someone who doesn’t think you should be hunted for what you did,” came the response at last, soft and heavily accented with a German flavor. “But I also don’t think you should stay here now.”

Mattie drew a sharp breath. “Wait a moment, I can’t just leave. _We_ can’t just leave.” For the first time since she’d known him, Leo had actually been happy these past few weeks. Untroubled. Their days as Bonnie and Clyde were behind them. Mattie fretted, “We have nowhere else to go.”

The woman inclined her head, a solution already prepared for her. “Sure you do. You can come stay with me for a while. Would you, Matilda?”

Mattie bit her lip, refraining from an instant answer. “How do I trust you?”

A reassuring smile broadened on the woman’s face. “How do you trust me? Your mother helped someone I love once, so I can at least do the same for her.”

Then Mattie remembered, the pieces fitting into a picture with slow precision. Laura had told her about Niska’s attempt to be tried for murder as a human. To prove the Synth’s consciousness level to a panel of humans, Mattie’s mother tracked down a German woman Niska had become close with to monitor their interaction. From what Mattie knew of the ending to this fairy tale, Niska was still living with this woman.

“Astrid?” she whispered.

Astrid Schaeffer nodded. “We need to get your things. My car is out in front.”

During the entire drive, Astrid said nothing about why she was at the hotel in the first place. But that didn’t mean she didn’t talk – in fact, it was hard to believe at first that impatient Niska could have fallen for someone so sociable.

“ – you’ll have to figure out your own meals, because I don’t cook and Niska doesn’t eat,” she was saying as she rolled the car close to a building. “Our flat’s at the top. I don’t like it so high, so we’re moving to Chemnitz next week.”

“I have to call someone,” said Mattie suddenly, an anxiety bomb ticking in her chest. “He needs to know what’s going on.”

Astrid raised her eyebrows knowingly. “You mean, like someone who would have Niska send me to get you as soon as he saw that article?” She pointed at the car next the one she’d parked beside. The Nissan. And with a sly grin on her face, she led a bewildered Mattie to the top floor and unlocked the entrance to her flat.

When Mattie walked in, she found Leo standing off with Niska. His shoulders were hunched as testament to his stress, and he had a hand clapped to the back of his neck in a likely attempt to work out a nervous knot.

“It’s not worth it,” he emphasized to his unblinking sister. “No, we need to find some other way.”

A stoic Niska said pointedly, “You came to me for help, Leo. This is what I’m willing to do for you. She has to die.”

“Come again?” interrupted Mattie, stricken with confused horror. That last statement had better have been about another woman. _Someone like Andrea_ , she thought wildly. _Feel free to off Andrea._

Leo turned to her at last. “Finally,” he said, sounding relieved. “Are you okay?”

 _Apart from my name turning up in the papers, losing my job, and hearing you two talk about possibly murdering me?_ But she nodded, swallowing back her usual sarcasm. “How did you find them?”

He shrugged. “Made some calls over the weekend.” Calls he hadn’t bothered to tell her about?

“Then he appeared at our door in time for _Emmerdale,_ ” said Niska brusquely, although there was a hint of amusement in her tone.

Mattie looked at Astrid, her curiosity unexpressed yet blatant as the nose on her face.

The other woman smirked. “We remain cool in other ways.”

She threw up her hands. “No judgement, okay? Just get back to the part where I have to die?”

Leo held up a hand, as though it could stop her from assuming the worst on its own. “We mean to hoax it, Mattie. No one will look for you if there’s a random selfie-taker that uploads a video of your death online.” He shot an irritated glance at Niska. “Not that I approve.”

“That’s because you’re not thinking clearly,” she said. Then, as an aside to Astrid, she commented, “He was always the least rational of all of us.”

“You’d almost think he was human,” her girlfriend answered, not unfondly.

Leo rolled his eyes. “I didn’t come here to be mocked, you know.”

“You didn’t come to watch a soap opera with us either,” said Niska as Astrid shot her a brief wink. “You came here because I’m smarter than you are.”

“Also less insane,” he muttered.

Bloody damn, they were worse than Mattie and Toby. _Time to put an end to this sibling argument._ “I’ll do it,” announced Mattie at last.

The same expression of a deer about to get struck by a train glanced off Leo and Niska’s faces; for a human and a Synth, the match was priceless.

 “So have you both decided how you’re going to make 13 Reasons Why: The Mattie Hawkins Edition?” she continued

Leo and Niska exchanged an awkward glance. “Actually, we think it would be best if - ,” Leo began before Niska interrupted.

“We’re going to drown you.”

“Oh?”

“In a car.” Niska looked at Leo knowingly.

He responded crossly, “It doesn’t have to be a car.”

“How else will the disappearance of the body be explained? They won’t track the car either.”

 

“There are about a hundred other ways that can be accomplished.”

But Niska’s glare bore the intensity of a laser. “Did you forget basic mathematics when you became human?”

Astrid leaned into Mattie’s and murmured, “Hard to believe they’ve been apart for nearly two years, right?”

Mattie made a small sound in her throat that resembled a chortle meeting an angry rattlesnake. “Stop!” she said loudly, causing the Elsters to turn their heads. “Sorry. But isn’t this grand plan how _you_ died?” she pointed out to Leo.

Reluctant, he raised his fingers to his temple like he was rubbing out a headache. “Obviously, theoretically, we’d leave the door open so that you can swim out,” he explained, still looking dark at the prospect.

“You can swim?” inquired Niska after the fact.

“Real nice of you to ask,” Mattie grumbled. “Yeah, okay? I’m no Olympian but _theoretically_ I can do that much.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Looking utterly exhausted, Leo looked pleadingly at Astrid. “This is incredibly, ridiculously dangerous. Can’t you see that?”

And concern flickered there, in Astrid’s brown eyes. But instead of speaking to Niska, she turned to Mattie. “He’s right. It’s not safe. I wouldn’t do it. But it’s your choice. And I wouldn’t bet against these two.” She bit her lip then, and added, “Well, her mostly. I don’t really know him,” she nodded at the other two.”

“But I do.” Far from humored, Mattie knew there wasn’t a lot of time to waste. A disconnected, worrying thought was shaken loose inside her head, yet she pushed it aside. “And I’m in.”

Astrid was a comfort throughout the day, it so happened. Talking with her was as calming as sleeping on one of those bamboo-based pillows. She could make the worst sound better. Which was good, because once Leo and Niska were finally finished bickering, they worked diligently on how to make this plan as believable as possible. They needed a lake with enough depth to sink the car, but not so much that Mattie would find the Titanic at the bottom. They needed to remove the airbags from the car so that Mattie could slip out easily enough, and a location that would be similar to other London locations to throw off the police.

Astrid came out of the kitchen with a soft pretzel. She tore it in half as easily as she tore the newspaper and handed a piece to Mattie.

When was the last time Mattie had a pretzel?

Taking a seat beside her, Astrid said, “They’re coming along well. I’m not so worried now. What about you?”

Mattie shrugged. “I’m worried about my family. What they’ll think if they see the news?”

“Ah.” Astrid withdrew her phone and quickly typed a message. Then she showed her a text that was read to send to Laura.

_Don’t believe what they’ll soon be saying about your daughter. She loves you and her thoughts are with her family._

  
It was so brief, and not nearly as much as her mother deserved to hear. But it was enough to avoid police suspicion and let them know she was alive. Mattie tapped the send button, a crushing sense of relief in her heart.

“What made you fall in love?” asked Astrid suddenly.

“What? Oh…I don’t know,” answered Mattie. “When I met him, he seemed lost. Damaged. Lonely and didn’t know how to trust. And I wanted to know him, to help him. Because underneath everything, he loves his family more than his own life. Sometimes he’s stupid about it, though.”

Astrid gave a slight laugh. “Same,” was all she said.

 _I think,_ she realized, _I have a new best friend._

 

The next day, Leo had his phone in hand, ready as a paparazzi reporter to capture things like celebrities walking their dogs, a random brawl at a pub, or a notorious mass fatality-causing hacker. Mattie knew how they were going to act it out – he was going to film an accident staged with Niska and Astrid’s car. Mattie was going to drive off the road and into the water. Then Leo would cut the filming and wait for her to emerge.

Before she got in, Mattie put a hand onto the Nissan. _So long old friend._ After everything they’d been through in Ed Hooley’s car, Mattie and Leo were now going to have to tag along with Astrid and Niska in their move to Germany.

 Standing beside her, Leo said, “Whatever you do, don’t panic. If I don’t see you after a minute, I’m coming in after you.”

She nodded, unwilling to let the worst come to mind. Mia had been the one to fetch Leo from the car when he was a child, and he’d still drowned. But what was there to panic about?

“Mattie?” he said suddenly.

“Hmm?”

He put his lips to hers. It dizzied her with hope and promise, and set her heart loose like a hummingbird. But when the kiss was over she wished he hadn’t done it. She wished she wouldn’t leave him.

Her heart pounding, she went into the Nissan for the last time. Leo left the driver’s door open just a crack, so she could hear him say, “Come back.”

_Come back to me._

“Okay,” she said, as Astrid began driving her own car to the road.

Mattie began following her to the edge, accelerating the closer she got. Somewhere behind her, Leo was filming it all.

Then –

The wind from outside blew the door shut. Like a circus horse only less graceful, the car flew out into the lake. Terror gripped Mattie and wouldn’t let go. The drop was sharp and straight. She barely had time to yell before she was under.

***

She woke up wanting to retch. Mattie was soaked head to toe, and water not only fell off but out of her. She spat out puddle after puddle, the tears still in her eyes. She was on land. She was on dirt. The lake was about a mile out. It was over.

Leo wrapped her with a towel. “Please say something,” he whispered.

Mattie coughed.

Red-faced, Leo said, “I am so, so sorry. I wanted to get you as soon as the car fell in. I froze. I kept thinking of what happened to me, and I don’t know…”

She stared at him, weak and shaky. “Why are you apologizing?” she asked. “I was the one who didn’t listen to you.”

“Why?” He stared at her in disbelief. “I’m apologizing because you nearly died. I’m saying it because I love you!”

She couldn’t explain it, but a delirious giggle slipped from hearing it the first time. “I love you too. But next time,” she added, spitting another mouthful of lake water out, “it’s your turn to die.”

Laughing, he put his arm around her.

“Ready to go?” came Niska’s voice behind them.

Leo turned around. “Yeah, just give us a moment.”

Niska turned around, and Mattie could swear she heard her mutter to Astrid, “ _Sentimentality.”_

Astrid’s voice was louder. “I think they are cute. I hope one of them can cook.”

Leo nudged Mattie. “You sure you want to live with them?”

She looked back at them. Niska was tipping her forehead against Astrid’s, the two conversing without words. Next she turned back to him. Right then, she wouldn’t be anywhere else.

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
